Defense News and research for the successful contractor

It’s been a while since we published an update of new features. We have been working quietly on a few upgrades that let you do more with BidLink..net. In a few weeks, we will be releasing this new upgrade, but you can get a sneak preview by clicking here, or going to test.bidlink.net.

Don’t worry, we haven’t changed the site so much that you will not recognize it. Most of the changes are improvements to existing features, and we’ve added a few new features too.

Information Center

The BidLink Information Center (click to see larger image)

A new addition to BidLink is the information center. This is your one-stop shopping for help, reference, videos and information. It even has a vast resource of DOD documents and specifications, just a click away. You can get to it almost anywhere on the site, by clicking on the icon wherever you see it, or clicking on areas with a highlighted background. It’s also in the left navigation under Help and Information. Feel free to explore it’s greatness. There is a video describing the information center here.

New Bid Search

The new bid search - click to see larger image

The bid search underwent a major overhaul. The interface has been simplified, although it is even more powerful. It provides easy access to “not” searches, which help you to refine your results by removing unwanted bids before you see them. This can save quite a bit of time. More help on the New Bid Search is here.

Quick Search

BidLink quick search - click to see larger image

We have added the quick search to more areas of the site, and fixed some bugs. It can now search more databases, including Mil-Specs. Unlike before, where BidLink would send a request to the Government for a mil-spec, we now serve them from our own network. BidLink has almost 200,000 mil-spec documents, comprising much of the DOD’s library. A video on the Quick Search is here.

Beyond features, there’s more data. Lots more. We now host a library of contract actions, which are procurement history that doesn’t fall under DOD’s NIIN based indexing system. These may include GSA contracts, DD350 and more. Look for contract actions when you search a company in the vendor lookup tool. We have also added more procurement history from hard to get sources like Navy and TACOM.

We’ve expanded our vendor data area with more information on companies and their activity. NSN lookup has more part numbers, including replaced NSNs. Forecast data offers the DOD’s predictions on future buying activity; ML-C tells you the unit price in case there is no procurement history. NSN status has also been added.

We hope you enjoy the new BidLink.net, and value your comments. The next few weeks will be polishing the new system . If you find any bugs, or have suggestions, use the contact area in the information center to drop us a note.